schools – Page 5

Fingers-crossed for City of Culture bid

July 14, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

City of Culture

We’ll learn at about 10.30 tonight if Swansea has been shortlisted for the UK City of Culture 2021 competition. We’re all keeping our fingers crossed as this would open up some great opportunities for the city and its citizens. My thanks to Tracey McNulty and her team who have put all their effort into getting our bid over the line.

Dragon’s Den

I attended the Grand Final of Moving Towards Successful Futures, which promotes entrepreneurship among children. It’s an important part of the new curriculum and Alison Williams from Craigfelen Primary School invited me to the event after reading my recent blog comments about Be the Spark.

Each school group had to design a product, develop a pitch and sell their goods to the public. They took over the central tables in Swansea Market for a day, selling products ranging from notebooks and soap to pots of slime, mostly from recycled materials. I spoke to all the groups and the enthusiasm of the pupils was impressive.

This was a fun event with a serious purpose and my thanks to all the teachers, pupils and staff who have worked so hard on this and particularly to Alison for inviting me.

The winning schools were:

Craigfelen Best Financial

Pontybrenin Best Idea

Craigcefnparc Best Marketing

Clase Best Customer Service

Terrace Road Best Research and Planning

Ynystawe Best Brand

Llwynderw Best Environmental

Christchurch Best Sales

Pentregraig Best Team Work

Blaenymaes Best Display Stand

Trallwn Best Social Media

Oystermouth Best Pitch

Take Care

We’re one of only two councils selected to work with Save the Children as part of the “Take Care Project” which aims to understand the issues relating to children in emergency or disaster situations. Year Six children from Trallwn Primary gave a presentation and wrote a song giving advice on what to do if you were caught up in a fire. They also made a video, which covered how they’d feel and what they’d want following an evacuation, which certainly provoked thought. The event will help change the way we plan and manage emergencies, such as including children in some exercises which was something they specifically asked for.

High 5s

Don’t miss the deadline of July 21 for nominating for the High 5 awards for inspirational children, young people and young adults. Staff can nominate staff as the age limit is 25 so have a think about the younger members of your teams, volunteers and apprentices you work with and consider if they are worthy of a High 5 Award. Swansea City FC star Leon Britton is our High 5 Ambassador again this year. All details here

Awards

We won three awards at the Swansea Life Awards. The Airshow was named Best Event so thank you to our Special Events team, Tourism Marketing, Highways and Transportation, Street Scene and Cleansing for ensuring a safe and enjoyable event. Clyne Gardens won the Best Tourism and Leisure Attraction thanks to the efforts of our Parks Operations and Development and Outreach teams, Tourism Marketing and the park’s Friends. The LC won Best Health/Gym/Spa. Well done to everyone involved.

We’ve been shortlisted for four national APSE Awards for the following categories; Highways, Waste Management, Building Services and Construction and the Best Workforce Initiative, which includes our apprentice scheme. The awards take place on September 7.

The Constructing Excellence Awards are being held today and we’ve been shortlisted for Health and Safety, Client of the Year and also for Project of the Year. Well done to everyone involved and it’s great to see your work being recognised by others.

Farewells

A number of school staff are moving onto pastures new or retiring – Catrin Pugh-Jones, Trui Williams, Jonathan Mead, Gareth Widlake and Sue Hollister. I’m very grateful for their dedication and commitment to children and young people.

I haven’t met them all but they have all made a real difference to their schools. I’ve met Sue Hollister who’s leadership and community engagement at Cefn Hengoed has had a huger impact on its improvement. The school has been judged twice to be an excellent school by Estyn and attendance rates have risen by 10% to over 94%. For the last four years, every single child has gained at least one qualification before leaving school and a range of other results have risen significantly. I’m grateful for her massive contribution. Diolch Sue.

Sad news

I was sorry to hear that one of our former councillors, Mair Gibbs, passed away this week. Mair was an excellent ward councillor who made a major contribution to the well-being of Bonymaen and Swansea. I worked with her on a number of projects and admired her tenacity in pursuing the interests of her constituents. Mair, a former Lord Mayor, was a great ambassador for our city and she will be sorely missed.

Reassuring residents after Grenfell Tower disaster

June 16, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Grenfell Tower

I watched in shock and disbelief as the dreadful events unfolded at Grenfell Tower. The impact on the community has been devastating and our thoughts go to the families of friends of all those who lost their lives or suffered injury as a result of the tragic fire.

Our Housing and Corporate Building teams responded immediately to reassure our high rise residents through letters hand-delivered on the day of the fire. We have 11 high rise blocks and 672 tenants living in them. Every flat has a hard-wired smoke detector which is tested annually as part of the gas service inspection. In addition, all communal areas have a full annual risk assessment by us and Mid and West Fire Service, to make sure that all the blocks are to the highest standard and to ensure that any issues identified are addressed immediately. We will review our procedures as further information emerges.

Although it’s too early to determine the cause of the fire there’s been some speculation about the cladding on the buildings. We’ve been carrying out improvement works to a number of the high rise blocks and this includes cladding the buildings’ exterior. Our schemes have only used non-combustible products both as cladding and fixing frames with a series of full fire breaks. However, there’s no room for complacency and our teams are conducting further investigations to provide absolute reassurance to our residents. Thanks to all involved for the rapid and comprehensive response.

Corporate Management Team

CMT has been working closely with Cabinet on the arrangements for resourcing the new Policy Development and Delivery committees. It’s important we align the work programmes for the committees to the council’s policy commitments and priorities. There’ll be a report to Council next Thursday which will define the remit of the committees and I‘ll expand further on this next week.

CMT discussed a number of reports including the progress being made on adult safeguarding and the finance and performance outturn reports for 2016/17.

We also agreed proposals for a new self-serve switchboard for staff. In future staff will be able to call the switchboard and use voice-activation to get through to a colleague elsewhere. Last year our switchboard answered more than 255,000 calls and 18% of these were from staff so this initiative will improve efficiency. To help with this, it’s essential staff update their contact details on Oracle.

Better communications

We’re making Skype for Business available to staff in the next few weeks to help improve communications. It can be used on PCs and other digital devices to talk to council colleagues via instant messaging, voice calls and video calls. It allows us to work more agilely and end the reliance on phone and email, which many of us complain about. We’re rolling-out more digital improvements and I’d encourage you to give it a try.

Ambition Week at St Helens

On Tuesday I was invited to meet the Year 6 pupils at St Helens Primary School for a Q&A session as part of their ambition week. They asked me what councils do, how do you get to work for them, where their money comes from and our plans for the city? This was followed by questions ranging from my “typical day”, to terrorism and whether I’d been on TV!

The ambition week is a great opportunity for pupils to think about their futures and to learn more about the world of work. Congratulations to head teacher Mark Thompson for organising the event and Jack Branford, the teacher who facilitated it excellently.

Race Council Cymru

On Thursday I met with Uzo Iwobi, chief executive of Race Council Cymru which is an umbrella body bringing together key organisations in Wales to cooperate on promoting integration, championing justice and race equality in institutions and society. The RCC are asking us to work with them on the celebrations for Black History Month which is held every October and to work with us on our UK City of Culture 2021 bid.

Vigilance in our buildings

The on-going terror threat needs to be kept into perspective, but at the same time we all need to be vigilant. As part of this, councillors, staff and the public may be asked to open their bags for our security officers to carry out checks. We should also wear our ID cards at all times and politely challenge anyone tailgating at security doors or not wearing ID. These small steps will help improve security for us all.

Take That

It’s not my cup of tea but I understand the Take That concert at the Liberty Stadium was a resounding success. There were a number of complaints about long queues that resulted from enhanced security checks but I guess that’s something we are all going to have to get used to whilst the UK threat level remains at severe.

Thanks to all the staff who helped with the logistics for the concert. It’s not an easy job when 32,000 descend on the stadium and it was very well co-ordinated by the Council.

Congratulations and thanks

Our Registration team has received glowing report from the General Register Office. The team is responsible for recording all births, deaths and marriages in the city. The team’s improved customer service has also been praised and is very welcome in a service that can often be dealing with difficult circumstances. Well done to everyone involved.

Many of you will know Jane Guy who’s retiring next week after nearly 44 years’ service. Jane was the first clerical officer appointed to West Glamorgan County Council in Nov 1973 (prior to the 1974 local government reorganisation) and during her career Jane’s worked for eight chief executives. Well done Jane, have a lovely retirement.

We were shortlisted for two honours in the annual MJ Achievement Awards which concluded with an event in London last night.

Our Social Services Work Development Service was acknowledged for its excellence in community engagement. Also our Sustainable Swansea: Fit for the Future initiative was saluted for its achievements in workforce transformation. Well done to everyone involved because getting shortlisted in these UK awards is a huge achievement.

In the election spotlight

June 9, 2017 by Martin 2 Comments

This has been another long 24 hours for me and the team who help me to run the UK Government Parliamentary election. I cast my vote as soon as my polling station opened and was greeted by an amazingly cheery and bright-eyed polling station team of Mal, Geraldine and Rebecca. Like all the other polling station staff they faced a long day and I am hugely indebted to everyone who helped run this election. Thanks for the warm welcome from the staff in the polling stations I was able to visit.

The elections team once again exceeded expectations, despite only just recovering from last month’s council elections. This time we faced heightened security concerns following the dreadful events at Manchester and London Bridge and the support from our security staff and special events team was outstanding. I was also grateful for the work done by our resilience team working with the Police.

Congratulations to Dean Howard, the first presiding officer to deliver his ballot papers to the election count. Dean came second at the local government election count but beat his personal best by arriving at around 10.15. As you can see from the photo Dean was pretty pleased with his performance. Mind you his polling station was only 100 yards from the count.

We had a lot of attention on the Gower constituency given the closeness of the 2015 result; a margin of only 27 votes. This wasn’t just from the local and national media companies. Gower was one of eight constituencies across the UK to be visited by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association team led by Callum Forster and made up of politicians from the governments of Bangladesh, South Africa, St Lucia and Ghana. Each of the eight constituencies is the subject of an election assessment to consider the conduct of the electoral process, and make recommendations for improvement. On Tuesday Huw Evans and I met with the CPA team and answered a range of questions about the electoral process and how it operates here in Swansea. They also visited the postal vote team and a number of polling stations in the Gower constituency. I look forward to their feedback and any suggestions on how the process could be improved in future. Huw and I made a few suggestions of our own which would require changes to national legislation and hopefully the CPA team will take these on board.

Congratulations to the MPs who have been elected to represent our three constituencies;

Swansea West – Geraint Davies

Swansea East – Carolyn Harris

Gower – Tonia Antoniazzi

Appointments

This week the appointments committee met to shortlist candidates for the post of Director of Resources. Interviews will be held on 26^th June and I am confident that Council will be able make an appointment the following day.

On a different note a number of people have asked me why the post of Chief Executive has been advertised. When I was appointed to the post last year it was on an interim basis for one year. Under local government rules interim appointments of the most senior staff should only be for a year. It was my view, and the Leader’s view, that an interim appointment would be the best way forward because it would allow the newly elected Council to choose their own permanent Chief Executive.

Approval of Swansea Central planning application

On Tuesday Planning Committee considered the planning application for Swansea Central. I have mentioned the project a number of times in previous blogs but the approval by Planning committee was a significant milestone and a green light to proceed with the regeneration plan for our City Centre. Comments at the committee reflected the quality and detail of the application. This has required a mammoth effort from our staff and a lot of people deserve to be thanked for their contributions not least of which are Phil Holmes, Huw Mowbray, Lee Richards, Katy Evans, Ryan Thomas, David Owen, Liam Smith and Stephen Smith.

The next phase is delivery and will be equally challenging but I am delighted that the key milestones have been met and confident that we can progress this apace.

Trading Standards

A Trading Standards case in Crown Court earlier this week has determined that a local shop owner jailed for selling dangerous ‘legal highs’ must now pay back more than £120,000 of the money he gained during the years he traded. This is great news and a further example of the hard work by Trading Standards and our Legal Team who have vigorously pursued the case, ensuring individuals do not profit from harmful trading activities.

City Centre

Demolition of the former Oceana building on Kingsway is now about 50% finished. Experts from Cuddy Group, who are demolishing the building for the council, are continuing to dismantle what remains of the building with a high-reach excavator. Scheduled for completion this summer, the demolition will pave the way on site for a new office development accommodating tech businesses.

High 5 Awards

Nominations are starting to increase for this year’s High 5 awards but we want more. The High 5 awards are open to any child, young person or group in three age ranges – under 13s, aged 14 to 19 or 20-25 year olds. We’ve also added a schools award this year which looks to recognise and reward larger school groups, even whole classes, years or teams.

All nominators need to do is fill in a nomination form here where they get the chance to explain why their choice of nominee should get a High 5, whatever the reason might be.

We’ve made it even more accessible to answer any query you have about High 5 this year with a new phone number we’ve set up. If you have a query or would like to leave a voice nomination call (01792) 635699 and leave a message.

UNESCO

Next week we will welcome visitors from across the UK and Europe who are keen to find out how Swansea is encouraging children and adults alike to learn about enterprise.

We were the first city in the UK to become a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities and are hosting a two-day meeting on Wednesday and Thursday.

Visitors will hear how we have worked with schools, colleges and universities to reduce the number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET), and see at first hand the extensive efforts to inspire young people to think about setting up their own businesses.

More than a dozen delegates are expected from as far afield as Scandinavia. I hope we will all give them a warm welcome.

Agile working

In the Civic Centre it’s great to see our new Agile Working area expanding. It’s encouraging to read the positivity coming from staff already there. I particularly like Marlyn Dickson’s observation in her case study: “Business conversations are so much easier … every working day feels much more human and personable.” Still wondering what it’s all about? Pop in and chat to some of your colleagues there!

Congratulations

It was great to hear that Burlais Primary School will soon be home to a garden from the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show after their success in the Greening Grey Britain project. The new school which was completed in 2015 will soon have a courtyard filled with plant life and colour. There was great coverage on the One Show last Monday as well. Congratulations to Alison Bastion and her team.

Congratulations also to transformation officer Gemma Whyley, who helped lead a Welsh team to glory at a major global cheerleading championships in the USA. Gemma was one of two coaches involved with the Welsh Paracheer Unified Freestyle Pom team that won gold at the ICU International Cheerleading and Dance World Championships held in Orlando, Florida. Twenty-five per cent of the team – the first ever from Wales to win at the championships – is made up of young athletes with physical disabilities.

And finally….

Are you going to the Take That concert at the Liberty Stadium on Wednesday evening (June 14)?

If you are, then all the info you’ll need on car parking, taxi tips, drop-off points, pick-up points and road closures is here. My thanks to staff in special events and transport for all their work in the build-up to the event to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible.

Brave new world

May 12, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

The recent council elections will trigger a number of things that will impact on us. Council on May 25 will elect a Leader who will appoint a Cabinet and determine the responsibilities within each portfolio. The policy agenda will reflect the commitments made during the election which includes new projects and programmes. We’ve already held induction sessions for our councillors. In an induction presentation I explained to them how the organisation functions, the roles of councillors and officers and the importance of maintaining mutual respect. There were also a series of presentations from senior staff on our services. It’s a daunting prospect for our new politicians, with a huge amount of compulsory training ranging from planning and licensing to safeguarding and data management. I know officers will make a concerted effort to help the new members to settle in. We’ve made a good start by holding a market place event where councillors spoke to staff from every service area. Thanks to all the staff who organised and took part in the market place event and to the councillors who attended.

CMT meeting

Corporate Management Team considered a number of reports relating to performance management and a new suite of indicators to reflect the next set of policy commitments and service performance. This will be driven by a newly established Strategic Delivery Unit to work closely with service directorates to ensure coherent and joined up delivery of Council priorities.

We also discussed workforce issues, including sickness management, and we’ll be having further discussions on this in the coming weeks.

Rhian Millar updated CMT on the results of the telephone survey of customers and I’m always impressed by the number of people who rate what we do. Every two months we survey the public on a number of issues and we always score very highly on staff being friendly (89%) efficient (82%), treating customers with respect (89%) and the level of customer service we provide (83%). Overall satisfaction with the way we run things is (71%). This is a great reflection of our staff. But it’s also interesting that only 34% of people would speak highly of us. I’m not sure why there’s such a gap between these scores, but it’s something I want to look at more closely.

Communities First – where next?

Since the Welsh Government decided to discontinue the Communities First approach to tackling poverty, we’ve been working closely with them to develop a transition plan to focus on employability, empowerment and early years. I was delighted when Swansea was selected to be one of the “early adopters” to pilot the new approach and I’m grateful to all the staff who’ve been working on this. This is an excellent piece of work that will now be presented to the Welsh Government for approval. Key to making this plan successful will be a joined-up approach which links employability to our early years and schools work, our apprenticeships strategy, the major investment programmes for the city and our social benefits policies.

Congratulations

As a keen walker I was delighted to hear that Rebecca Tribe (Waste Management) and Terri Shaw (Corporate Building Services) have just completed the Great Wall of China challenge to raise money for Ty Hafan. They joined a team of fundraisers in China last week, walking for up to 9 hours a day! Between them all they managed to raise a fantastic £70,000 for the local charity. Ever dedicated to her job – Rebecca even managed to take a photo of the recycling bins along the way! Congratulations to Rebecca and Terri for a fantastic achievement.

Ian George, contract monitoring officer in adult services, recently completed the London Marathon. Ian was thrilled to have finished in 5 hours and 21 minutes. Currently the funds raised stands at over £5,000 and this will help Shaw Trust to support vulnerable people in academy schools. You can donate here

Our Food and Safety team received a Certificate of Commendation from the Swansea and West Wales Occupational Safety Group. It’s in recognition of the team visiting local businesses and manufacturers to talk to them about health and safety in the workplace.

We’re on a bit of a roll at national award ceremonies and our latest successes came at Sunday’s inaugural Professional Teaching Awards Cymru. Mark Thompson, who has led St Helen’s Primary School since 2011 and supports other schools in Swansea as a challenge adviser, was named Head Teacher of the Year. Bethan Baglow of Olchfa Comprehensive School won the award for School Business Manager, while Hafod Primary School, shortlisted for the Whole School Award for promoting relationships with parents and the community, just missed out. Many congratulations to everyone involved.

Staff events

Many of our colleagues have already become Dementia Champions as part of our commitment to make Swansea a Dementia Friendly city. On Thursday (May 18) Dementia Friendly Swansea is holding an open morning at the Waterfront Museum as part of Dementia Awareness Week.

On Tuesday (May 16) between 6pm and 8pm the Foster Swansea team will be staging the first of two information evenings at the Civic Centre so that anyone considering becoming a foster carer can find out more.

C’mon the Swans!

Finally, this weekend could well be a significant one for our local football club, Swansea City, who travel to Sunderland in an attempt to avoid relegation from the Premier League. I suspect the issue of who gets relegated will not be determined until next Sunday but I hope any staff who are travelling have a safe trip and an enjoyable day. It’s really important for the city that the Swans retain their Premier League status.

Coming up trumps

April 6, 2017 by Martin Leave a Comment

Awards

We came up trumps again this week at another UK awards event which highlights the great work our staff are doing. We won the gold award at the iESE (Improvement and Efficiency South East) awards for our Transformation in Waste & Environment submission. The award was for our Household Waste Recycling Centre initiative which is fantastic recognition for the success of the project. Congratulations to staff in waste management and colleagues in parks and cleansing, communications, highways, housing, and the call centre who all contributed.

We also gained the bronze award for Transformation through Support Services, for implementing the ICT Service Desk and self-service portal which achieved improved efficiency, better demand management and reduced cost. The whole Digital Services team were involved in ensuring it was scoped and delivered on time, and I’d like to thank everyone for their hard work.

There were 157 entries and we were the only Welsh council shortlisted in both categories, which is a fantastic achievement.

Great services, great staff

Here are four examples of how our staff are making such a huge difference. After winning an award for a film they made, our Children’s Rights and Participation Group, which is made up of looked-after children and youngsters who have experienced care, is to receive a Diana Award. The Diana Awards are presented to courageous, caring and compassionate young people for transforming the lives of others in the name of Diana, Princess of Wales. I’m sure colleagues in Child and Family Services and Education are especially proud and they too deserve credit for this fantastic achievement.

Another initiative gaining recognition is the council-led domestic abuse hub. The BBC recently featured the story of a Swansea couple who survived domestic abuse with the help of this pilot project, which follows a Sustainable Swansea commissioning review. It’ll be the first of its kind in Wales. Here’s the BBC story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-39450276

The refurbishment of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery has been highlighted by Constructing Excellence in Wales as an example of best practice. It was one of a number of projects to participate in the Enabling Zero Waste initiative, with Construction Excellence in Wales providing technical advice and guidance on waste management. Figures show 82.9% of its waste was recycled, 12.1% was converted into energy and 1.8% was either prevented or re-used.

Our Car Parking Services team and Commercial Services have successfully promoted car parking for local businesses. As a result, our High Street multi-storey car park, which has historically been underutilised, now accommodates over 300 Virgin Atlantic and TUI Group employees. Similarly, our Strand car park now accommodates 283 BT employees.

Our New CRM system

The new Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) for managing customer contact went live on March 30. It’s a massive improvement on the one previously hosted by Cardiff Council which has been in place for 10 years. It’s also enabled £70,000 worth of savings to be made. This cloud-hosted system is faster and more robust, which enables our Contact Centre floorwalkers to access data from tablet PCs and mobile phones so they can triage customers during high demand.

I’m really impressed it’s been built in-house using one of the new digital platforms. Our Communications team are also using the social engagement module to monitor traffic around the UK City of Culture 2017 bid. More developments will grow across the Council now the new platform is live.

I’d like to send special thanks to Rayna Soproniuk from digital services and Delyth Evans and Michelle Regan from the Contact Centre, who all worked incredibly hard to get the system in on time.

Discussions with Cardiff

This week I met Paul Orders, Chief Executive at Cardiff Council, to discuss a range of issues including the respective City Deals and how the two cities in Wales can co-operate in the future. Despite my undying love for Swansea City FC, I enjoy visiting Cardiff and it was interesting to hear the forthcoming proposals for the continued regeneration of our capital city. Paul and I have had a number of meetings along with Will Godfrey, Chief Executive at Newport Council, mainly about how the three cities can help to reinvigorate the Welsh economy. Different councils have different strengths and co-operation between us is an excellent way to improve services and learn from others. The challenges facing Cardiff and Swansea are very similar and I explained our approach to transformation through Sustainable Swansea. We identified a number of areas where we can collaborate and I’ll be discussing these with councillors.

School visits

Last Friday I visited Penyrheol Primary School for a meeting of the school council and pupil representatives. It was interesting to hear the numerous activities taking place in the school, and great to see how the investment in new ICT kit there is paying dividends.

The council voted on which charities the school would support and decided that Water Aid and protecting dolphins were their priorities. They’re also collecting for the local food bank. I had a quick tour of the brightly-coloured classrooms. Penyrheol pupils are among the most welcoming and happy young people I‘ve met in schools, so thanks to head teacher Alison Williams, the staff and all the children for looking after me.

On Tuesday I dropped in to see Jamie Richards, Head Teacher at Cadle Primary School. We had an interesting conversation which reinforced my thinking about the need to undertake a cross-cutting commissioning review of services for children and young people. He explained many of the challenges of joint working and I hope he’ll contribute to our thinking on how we can better co-ordinate a whole council approach in future. The pupils were more interested in hearing about the forthcoming airshow than our plans for the city centre or lagoon. Thanks to Jamie, the staff and pupils for a brief but enjoyable visit.

As usual I took the opportunity to have a brief look round the neighbouring community and was pleased to see progress being made in improving the environment and housing in Fforesthall, Cadle and Portmead.

Spring has arrived

It feels like winter is officially over now that floral displays are emerging across our city thanks to the fantastic work done by our teams in parks. It makes a huge difference and I’m grateful to everyone involved.

Clean-up

Well done to staff in our cleansing team who joined local PCSOs in a joint day of litter-picking and clean-up action in Mount Pleasant. It’s an excellent example of how joint-working with other organisations in the city can benefit local communities.